All the new music I loved in October
Plus a four hour long Halloween playlist for you and yours
Hello and happy Halloween. It is my favorite holiday and to celebrate I made you you a four hour long Halloween playlist.
It’s somehow October 31st? Omg where have I even been you guys I’m so sorry. Let’s not talk about the past though let’s talk about this actual tiny violin they sell at the American Girl store that I need desperately (have you ever seen someone make such an extended recurring bit out of personal tragedy it’s giving life is a highway). A fun biographical note about me is that I had an American Girl doll as a child and which one did I choose? Kirsten, the Swedish blonde. Okay go off self-hating nine year old. I lost her at some point (and by some point I mean like a decade or more later) and my mother still brings it up to this day.
In my time away from you I’ve been toiling in the Google Doc obviously, but also visiting with Tom Cruise’s acupuncturist, starting a peptide journey (this belongs in
’s blog or ’s, not mine tbh), watching TV (Task on HBO, The Diplomat, and season 2 of Nobody Wants This, a show about a literal rabbi that is somehow afraid to ever talk about God? spoke about this on the Ringer Prestige TV podcast this week), and online shopping. What did I buy? Thank you so much for asking. I bought a vintage leather Ralph Lauren band jacket, some dark denim men’s Stussy jeans, and…a second leather jacket (a Ghesquière era Balenciaga motorcycle jacket from TRR).I also saw the film Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. I really wanted it to be good. I always want music biopics to be good. I (naively!) think they CAN be good. This one is not. This one is elder abuse. This one is the filmic equivalent of when old people have very large size font on their phones. I went on The Big Picture to talk about all the reasons it was not good, so you can listen to that if you care.
Anyway here’s what I’ve been listening to and reading this month:
The new Militarie Gun album God Save The Gun has been on repeat in this house. I feel like Ian Shelton really crawled deep into his “art as therapy” bag and the results are gorgeous. Standout tracks: “BADIDEA”, “God Owes Me Money” where MG go Killers-mode, ft. Missy from Mannequin Pussy, “Kick” (my personal favorite, co-written by James from Dazy with the Butthole Surfers-esque sprechgesang and the Killing Joke sample, a real 90s glory moment) and finally “Daydream” in which Ian brings out the acoustic and jerks tears all around.
Been self-harming with Blondshell ft Gigi Perez “Arms” which is off Another Picture, the forthcoming companion album to this year’s If You Asked For A Picture.
Wednesday’s cover of one of my (and everyone’s) favorite Guided By Voices songs, “Game of Pricks” for SXMU. It’s only available on Sirius XM which of course I have because I need to listen to Channel 30 in the car (Dave Matthews Band Radio obvi).
Speaking of Wednesday, the essay Karly Hartzman wrote for Vulture about breaking up with MJ Lenderman in the midst of making her new album is incredible. Confessional personal essays are a dime a dozen (gestures around at nearly all of Substack) and if I’m keeping it 100, they’re mostly really boring/shiny with artifice masquerading as vulnerability (no please tell me more about what you learned about the point of life while not using your iPhone for six days) , but Karly is such a beautiful and honest writer; she leaves no room for the banal. She catches you in the sticky molasses pacing of her thoughts and feelings, charms you with vivid details (“I filled my Marvin the Martian cup with tequila on our neighbors’ porch”) and then quietly delivers sentence-length gut punches, one after another. It’s a testament to her skill as a lyricist; she’s just an amazing writer, in any format.
The new Jay Som album Belong is so fucking good. I feel like Melina Duterte is a slept-on genius. A few years back I was lucky enough to get her to compose a theme song for the now defunct 33 1/3 podcast I exec produced with Prince Paul hosting, it was actually so good and if you’re bored you should go listen to it, the episode about Portishead’s Dummy with the RZA (I’ve lived so many lives). Anyway this whole record is fab but the duets really jump out, particularly the beautifully twinging “Past Lives” with
Williams and my personal favorite track, “Float” with Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World (what a king).Also did you listen to the Bandsplain episode about Jimmy Eat World with Chris Ryan yet?
trying a new thing: